(For example, choosing to do something wrong makes your character dark over time).

Uhm... yes?

But there is a BUT. Don't just "throw in" choices, for choices to work, you need the right game type (how you tell the story), you need the right gameplay,you need the player to feel the effects of his actions and he should care about his choices.

I personally think the original Fable is a very good example on how NOT to do it. As far as I remember, there was only ONE choice that really changed something, that was if you killed your sister or not. Also, because you always could choose between the obvious good/bad, you could go for mainly bad, throw in some good acts, then some more bad ones. It didn't affect the story in a great deal.Also the "affecting the story" aspect is often made amateurish(like in the first Witcher), where almost all of your actions influence the last level. And even then they just influence who you fight. The fights are about equally hard.

"Heavy Rain" is a game that made choices very cool. It changed the story and didn't shy away from killing main characters if you screw up. It also didn't just add good vs. bad. You were always in a grey area and sometimes faced with a dilemma.

So, making STANDARD good vs. bad choices is easy, but as easy as they are, so generic they may feel for the player.

However, make real life things have consequences. Helping another survivor will make your character one way. Killing zombies will make your character stronger and less fearful, but killing other people (whether they attack you or not) will affect your character for a while.

However, make real life things have consequences. Helping another survivor will make your character one way. Killing zombies will make your character stronger and less fearful, but killing other people (whether they attack you or not) will affect your character for a while.

You could make it a plot point when you first kill a human character. For example, Fallout will do things like send "Regulators" after you if you've gained bad karma.

Perhaps the first night you rest after killing a human, a cutscene will play out. If it was a bandit who attacked you, or a person holding a survivor hostage, etc. your character will struggle with the idea but come to accept it? Depending on how "badass" your character is, every time you rest there could be consequences for killing people. For example, there could be a Wendio-esque madness that comes with killing innocent people. The more people you kill, the more "nightmare visions" the player will get re-playing their death. If it becomes extreme, rest will become less effective and you could lose sleep. Depending on a set of values (how many zombies are killed, the player's personality type that could be randomly generated at the start of the game, how many times they have been attacked by bandits/ lost a party member) a character could either begin to become a hardened sociopath or learn to relish killing humans, or they could become mentally unstable and crazier as time goes on.

I think this would be a really awesome characteristic to have. It could change your character's mental fortitude, dealings with other characters, fear response, how well they sleep, moral standards, things like that. When faced with a storyline decision, a character who has learned to kill without regret may have a different set of options from a character who is driven mad by the killing they have done. For example, in an endgame scenario. say there is the player character and two important NPC's. One NPC is going to kill the other. A hardened killer character may be able to gun down one NPC. A regretful killer may jump between the two, sacrificing their life (or just receiving a gunshot) and bringing the conflict to an end. A character who has gone through the game trading and negotiating may be able to talk the one down. A justified killer (one who only kills bandits and other problems) may stall the situation before launching a surprise attack (think what Rick did to Shane at the end of Season 2 of the Walking Dead).

However, you do want to take care not to make it too much like Fallout's system where you can do things based on Speech levels, Intelligence, that sort of thing. It should be organic and a result of the actions within.

Dakota, I really like your ideas and might use them. We have a composer for music, but we could always use help, so I'll PM you when I need it. Also, I Definetly use the NPC shooting someone with a deduction.

Honestly I've seen this done a lot and I always end up disappointed because it's so one-dimensional.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea, I'm just saying that life is a whole lot more complex than a single "good vs bad" continuum. Also, a lot of the games I've seen this in make it an explicit system, which I think detracts from it a lot. Don't tell me about how 'holy' or 'mean' I am. Just implement the effects in the game. I don't have a 'reputation bar' in real life, but I have to deal with the effects of reputation in my social interactions. That goes for sparkly shit too. If I'm nice to people a lot I don't start glowing and if I'm mean my skin doesn't turn red and black. I think it would be a lot cooler if you just implement the effect of the system without trying to advertise to the player that the system exists. It seems really lame to me to go around doing things for extra 'good points' so that I can get some item. It just becomes another form of currency instead of a fluid part of the game system.

That being said, I really like the idea of psychological effects on the player character. Doing something dangerous makes you braver, etc. As long as the game is structured such that being braver actually effects the gameplay (in other words, you may freak out in battle if you're not brave enough or something) that could be really interesting.

Oh and one other thing. If you DO implement a 'good' vs 'evil' system then for the love of god make sure it's balanced. I get so frustrated when a game tells me I can be good or evil and then punishes me for being one or the other. Black & White sounded awesome to me until I tried to play an evil god and found out how quickly I ran out of worshipers.

Edited by Khatharr, 10 November 2012 - 03:13 PM.

void hurrrrrrrr() {__asm sub [ebp+4],5;}

There are ten kinds of people in this world: those who understand binary and those who don't.